The Government has failed rural Ireland. What we have is a lot of talk and not enough delivery. There is a housing crisis, a cost-of-living crisis and a disability crisis in rural Ireland. There are other issues that people in rural Ireland face on a daily basis, such as those relating to a lack of water due to burst water mains, outages, treatment plant malfunctions and boil water notices. Irish Water has contempt for customers. It should never have been established and should be abolished. Tipperary town public water supply has been on a boil water notice since 12 February 2026. The supply serves a town of more than 5,000 people. The only and most recent information on the Irish Water website is dated 12 February 2026. There has been no further information. It is absolutely outrageous. Half of the town of Clonmel was out of water on Friday and Saturday with no notice. There were homes without water and businesses had to close. The town of Fethard was similarly without water at the weekend. The town of Carrick-on-Suir and west Waterford have ongoing outages and boil water notices. That is completely unacceptable. Vacancy and dereliction in the main streets of our towns are very serious issues. I hope towns will be supported by means of the regeneration programmes for towns with populations under and over 10,000 people. In particular, Clonmel town centre requires consider refurbishment, having been hit by changes in retail trends and a resulting closure of businesses, including long-standing family businesses. Tipperary County Council is submitting a significant town centre upgrading project this week, under the towns and cities regeneration investment fund. Approval of this project is of vital importance for the consolidation and development of the town. It is a shovel-ready project, with Part 8 consultation complete. The town has an excellent record of completing schemes such as this on time and under budget. These include schemes such as Kickham Plaza and the sports hub. Early approval of this project is essential. Other very serious issues affecting rural Ireland include security and the level of policing. Throughout Tipperary, Garda numbers are completely inadequate. Gardaí on the beat are almost non-existent now. I must say that seeing on RTÉ news recently a successful Garda beat in Dublin city centre was very difficult to take, seeing as we have been looking for this type of operation for quite some time. Transport is another issue.

Sentiment score: -0.05